Hasselblad has loosened some lens design demands by placing the burden in post-processing for chromatic aberration, distortion and vignetting. This might be the wave of the future, though I personally do not like this approach, as it requires software which might or might not be suitable for one’s workflow. By contrast, Leica has taken the design approach of making the best possible lens, made possible by limiting the camera to a moderate size (smaller) sensor.

Let’s look at what distortion correction does with the HCD 28mm f/4.

Comparing

There is of course a small loss of angular coverage with any distortion correction.

Mouse over the image below to compare the corrected version to the as-shot version.

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